A very Indian vijay

That moment of Vijay Singh's triumph at Augusta brought a scattered diaspora togetherIndians are everywhere. In almost every profession an...

That moment of Vijay Singh8217;s triumph at Augusta brought a scattered diaspora together

Indians are everywhere. In almost every profession and country. And now with Vijay Singh, even in golf the last bastion of an elite8217; regime. Although his place of origin is Fiji, can anyone doubt the Indianness of a Vijay Singh? His stunning, and certainly well-deserved, victory at Augusta, Georgia, is being celebrated by Indians everywhere as their very own.This phenomenon gives new meaning to the term diaspora8217;.

According to Steven Vertovec, diaspora8217; is the term used to describe any population which is considered deterritorialised8217; 8230;whose social, economic and political networks cross the borders of nation-states. Certainly deterritorialisation8217; marks the way Indians are dispersed all over the globe. However, at another level, what seems to have occurred is 8220;re-territorialisation8221; of the 8220;Indian identity8221;. For the duration of the golf championship at Augusta, for instance, all Indians forgot their differences and a common sense of pride came to dominate their feelings wherever they may have been geographically located.

Perhaps such reassertion of identity is the logical culmination of the way globalisation has blurred geographical boundaries. If golf is seen as a symbol of the 8220;civilized8221; world, then with the donning of the green jacket, Vijay Singh rendered Indians 8220;civilized8221;. First it was cricket, then tennis and chess, now it is golf.

Multiple identities are a logical culmination of histories of migration and of birth. For Vijay Singh, victory is a celebration as an Indian and as a Fijian. At the same time, it is not only Indians who share a sense of pride, but people from Fiji, and perhaps even South Asia as a whole. Augusta in 1995 had to come to terms with Vijay Singh8217;s first appearance on the golf course. A victory on its own. On April 9, it had to accept another stunning victory. Such is the nature of decolonisation. In times when literary awards, beauty pageants, and now even cricket, have become suspect, what happened in Augusta can be nothing other than pure talent. It can be safely assumed that this win has given hope to budding golfers in Pakistan, as also in Sri Lanka, or the Maldives. Perhaps it is possible to say that despite fissiparous tendencies within a nation in particular, in a region more generally, and among the diaspora at large, genetic nationality can act as a cementing force when achievements are celebrated.

The sociology of sport becomes relevant at such times. The role played by sport in the lives of billions all over the world is phenomenal. It is the channel8217; through which sentiments of various kinds are unleashed. This can be seen in the way East Europeans consider gymnastics and chess as their preserves of excellence and the African Americans, basketball. Sport links the individual to the nation state or region of one8217;s origin.

Reassertion of diasporic identity is then the logical culmination of the way in which culture8217; and space8217; interact with each other. Globalisation has made the Indian dictum, vasudhev kutumbakam8217; a reality. For Indians the whole world is their home. As a result, the links with the motherland are never really severed. There is no escape from the search for roots and this gets articulated in politics, religion, ethnicity. And in sport.